So your business is going to run a client function or you maybe rewarding your employees for a job well done. What do your guest or employees expect? Good food, quality drinks, be they alcoholic or not, soothing music and an address by an interesting speaker. By interesting it is not meant an analysis of the companies accounts by the Chief Executive Officer no matter how colorful or conversely dry and hesitant the delivery. No what is interesting are presentations from celebrity speakers who are used to talking to gatherings of people and who may be working or have worked in an interesting field.
Obviously the choice of celebrity speaker will depend on the expected audience. If the audience is male dominated the choice may be quite simple – a sports star. If female predominant then the options can be more varied and could extend into the entertainment field. There is little point in choosing a celebrity that the audience may struggle to identify with even if the host may identify with them.
Who do you choose for the celebrity speaker? That should depend on the audience. It would be no good hiring a female chat show host to speak to bunch of male blue collar workers unless of course she were drop dead gorgeous. Similarly an aging football star would be of little interest to group of female telemarketers unless of course he was not completely grey and still has his abs.
Sports stars are often favorites to engage at such events especially if the audience is predominantly male. They are in general may be more aware and interested of the world of sport than an audience of females. Not all sports stars however are great communicators so their sporting stature may need to be iconic if their oratory is not so great.
Most speakers often need to have the wow factor to attract people to the function in the first place unless the food, drink and music has a reputation that precedes it. The wow factor may be the chance to see and listen to some one in the flesh that is normally seen on the big or small screen. There may be an element of mystery in hiring someone that is normally only heard but never seen or they maybe advertised as a mystery celebrity. This could however carry an element of risk.
If the audience is a collection of geeks (read technical experts) then a super geek may enthrall them. There would be a number of those in the dot com world or in the technical world of the particular audience. The host would need to be sure that these super geeks were able to engage with that audience and not alienate too much of it with geek speak (read technical jargon).
At most occasions however a celebrity who is able to tell great and interesting stories is usually an asset, particularly if the stories involve fascinating people or important moments in history. These events and people may not be earth changing in themselves but if they are part of pop culture history then they should be fascinating to hear about. One would hope that presenter was present there at the event being discussed at the time in order to convey their account first hand.
The bonus for the host at such occasions is for the hosts business to be associated with positive and inspirational messages from the celebrity speakers. The message that many celebrities bring with them is usually that of success in their field of work. This may include elements of triumph over handicaps or just achievement through lots of hard work. As such it should inspire those that get to hear it and by association the hosts business should benefit.
Tagged with: celebrity speakers • speaker • speakers
Filed under: General
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